Thursday, February 28, 2013

I'm amazed no one's done this before! (If they have I'm @dancall on Twitter)

Fox Searchlight have made a 15 second TV ad for their film Stoker from animated gifs that they created on a dedicated site, Letters to India. Some of the pics on the site have clearly been made with Cinemagram, for example this one

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Workarounds was one of the trends I wrote about in this presentation back in December. The idea was that people were finding new ways of doing things, specifically when technology didn't let them.

Examples include taking screenshots on Instagram to re-share pics, and lots of the slightly complicated by low tech mobile payments that are emerging, as a workaround for people being unable or unwilling to use NFC and more advanced technologies.

Lots of companies look at the frustrating things that we all do as sources of inspiration for new products, and I've seen two very good examples in the last couple of weeks.

First, Mailbox. Mailbox is an app that lets you sort your email. Who knew we needed a dedicated app to help us sort out our existing email accounts? Well, Mailbox did, and in retrospect it seems pretty obvious. & looks petty essential too - wonder when it's coming out for Android?

Second, Sunrise. Sunrise is an app that sorts out your calendar, merging both your personal calendar with your contacts (& Facebook) to give you a daily digest. Again a great workaround for something that had become too complex (& again iOS only).

Friday, February 15, 2013

Coca Cola are continuing to do variations on a theme with their Happiness Machines - this one is from Spain from last year, where they set up an ATM that would give out €100 for free if people agreed to use it to spread happiness. Heartwarming!

For me this is an other example of a workaround (one of my big trends for this year); ideally you'd have your Amex details on your phone and you'd be paying by NFC. In this case the card and account (& therefore phone) are linked, so this mechanism lets you buy things with your mobile.

In each wave companies have come to dominate, but then have failed to become important players in the next one. For example Microsoft were very dominant in PCs, but have so far failed to have a similar role in mobile.

After the lecture someone asked the obvious question: What is the sixth wave?

The sixth wave, came the reply, is computers built into devices, for example houses, appliances and cars. This of course then makes interfaces (like voice recognition) very important.

"It is a scene playing out in supermarkets across the world: a consumer waits to pay and, instead of browsing the magazines and chewing gum displayed alongside, she pulls out her mobile phone for a quick digital distraction.US magazine executives call the habit the “mobile blinder” after the vision-narrowing headgear worn by racehorses, and say the trend is wreaking havoc on the industry.Data released on Thursday show a big decline in single-copy sales of US magazines at newsstands and retail outlets, amid increased digital competition and reduced retail space. Single-copy sales fell 9.5 per cent to about 26.7m in 2012 from the previous year, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. That is about half the 52.9m magazines sold on newsstands a decade ago."

'Binge viewing' - when people watch multiple episodes of a TV show in one sitting. Apparently Netflix prefer the term 'marathoning', but binge watching was the buzz phrase used most often when discussing last week's launch of their House of Cards.

"Television producers have turned bingeing, hoarding and overeating into successful prime-time shows for years, but now they are having to turn their attention to another example of overindulgence — TV watching.

Binge-viewing, empowered by DVD box sets and Netflix subscriptions, has become such a popular way for Americans to watch TV that it is beginning to influence the ways the stories are told — particularly one-hour dramas — and how they are distributed.

Some people, pressured by their peers to watch “Mad Men” or “Game of Thrones,” catch up on previous seasons to see what all the fuss is about before a new season begins. Others plan weekend marathons of classics like “The West Wing” and “The Wire.” Like other American pastimes, it can get competitive: people have been known to brag about finishing a whole 12-episode season of “Homeland” in one sitting."

Monday, February 04, 2013

As most of the UK slept, marketing finally became real time, as brands started firing out tweets that were responsive to what was happening at the Super Bowl and on TV.

The Super Bowl is the biggest deal in American marketing, but until now it's mainly been TV that's been the focus, with massively expensive ads trailed and released online before the events.

Last night there was a power outage and within minutes brands responded with tweets about it, or started to buy keywords like 'Power Outage', knowing that people would be searching Twitter to try to find out what was happening. I think it'll be seen as a landmark event in second screen marketing.

Oreo seem to have done best, with this picture tweeted within 5 minutes: